ome triaged hundreds of vulnerable patients all day and night in the sweltering heat of a makeshift medical unit. Others handed out needed medications to mobs of desperate evacuees in a sports arena. Still others lived in their barely functional clinic for weeks to enable life-saving surgeries while their own homes succumbed to the waters of Hurricane Katrina. These are the ways that ASA members emerged as heroes as this disaster cut its swath through the Gulf Coast area in late August and early September.

Many of these physicians were victims themselves. Some evacuated their families but returned to practice medicine in unimaginable conditions. Others stayed behind to try to outlast the hurricane and found themselves playing roles in the many dramas, large and small, that played out as victims struggled to survive.

As the situation went from bad to worse after the levees of Lake Pontchartrain gave way, anesthesiologists from all over the country contacted ASA to see how they could help the many thousands of people who were caught in the flood’s ravages. Ironically, some of these same physicians would soon become evacuees themselves, forced to flee Hurricane Rita.

Several of our members who were actively involved on the “front lines” of these disasters kept in contact with the ASA headquarters office to enable officers and staff to assess the needs of members and of the general patient population. Their stories were shared on the ASA Web site and in media reports and are replayed here to more permanently recognize the role that ASA members played in yet another major world event to be added to the first 100 years of our history.

Many more members, in the first hours and days of the disaster, poured out their concerns and their desire to provide assistance. They volunteered to go directly to the flooded area; they offered to give up their vacation time to help out with relief efforts or to relieve colleagues who were affected; they volunteered to make telephone calls. Within a few days of Hurricane Katrina’s direct hit on New Orleans, ASA President Eugene P. Sinclair, M.D., had appointed a task force to coordinate the ASA response with that of other organizations.

This task force, headed by ASA Vice-President for Scientific Affairs Charles W. Otto, M.D., includes ASA members with experience in trauma, disaster response and other areas that can be brought to bear on the situation. In addition to establishing the Anesthesia Foundation-ASA Disaster Relief Fund and setting in motion ways to help displaced residents and other practitioners to find new venues, the work of the task force is ongoing.

Following are excerpts from members’ accounts of the disaster and from news stories about Hurricane Katrina. These stories remind us that those who were able to use their medical skills and their compassion to help ease the suffering considered themselves the lucky ones, because so many of their colleagues would gladly have stood by their sides if given the chance.

Testimonials
James “Judge” S. Hicks, M.D. (please see complete report at <www.ASAhq.org/news/hicksreport90205.htm>):
Dr. Hicks reported to a makeshift medical treatment center at Kenner Airport in New Orleans on September 1 as part of a Disaster Medical Assistance Team from Oregon. He and his colleagues treated hundreds of evacuees who had taken refuge there, working as long as 48 hours without sleep, hand-ventilating patients until mechanical ventilators could be provided and calming the desperate and the vulnerable.

“Patients keep coming in as fast as they can move them out. They are coming by helicopter, by ambulance — we had some come from Charity Hospital in a boat and then a pickup truck,” he reported on the second day of his deployment. He said many patients were on stretchers, disabled and otherwise without the means to evacuate. “It’s like walking through a nursing home. People reach out to you and they need something, and you try to stop and help somebody. This is not on my assigned task list, but it’s why we’re here.”

Dr. Hicks and his team continued working at their site until September 10 when all patients had been taken to more stable facilities. He has a military background, having served in Operation Desert Shield/Storm and as commander of a combat support hospital in Washington state. He retired with the rank of colonel in 1997 and was awarded the Legion of Merit. He currently serves as director of Obstetric Anesthesia at Oregon Health and Science University.

Susan G. Dobbs Curling, M.D. (please see complete report at <www.ASAhq.org/news/mediabriefs.htm>):
“I have had four calls this week from displaced anesthesiologists looking for work … [one] opted to go to Louisiana, and now has his education debt, and lost his home and job after one month at his new position … We need to help our colleagues who are in a desperate situation,” Dr. Dobbs Curling urged. Meanwhile, she reported with immediacy on the evacuees she treated: “I saw patients at a local shelter in a church in Kingwood where they are housing 150 people. I saw a patient with HIV, a blind man with hemorrhoids who had no diabetic or hypertensive medication and a woman who had been walking with glass in her feet during the storm … the tops of her feet were sunburned from standing out in the sun …” She added, “A volunteer brought in one of the ‘survivors’ — I think that is the most hopeful term — who had been taking care of all the others. She had been through a terrible horror and could not sleep because of flashbacks.”

Thomas H. Cromwell, M.D. (please see complete report at <www.ASAhq.org/news/cromwellstory.htm>):
We arrived by police-escorted convoy Tuesday afternoon and were met by literally thousands of people milling around on the Superdome ramps attempting to make their way in, many wading through now waist-deep water. We drove into the ice rink, which was now pitch black due to loss of power and stifling in the 100-degree heat without air conditioning. Words cannot describe the scene we encountered as we made our way up to the concourse level, congested with hundreds of people waiting for treatment. There was no running water, and toilets were overflowing but continued to be used in desperation.

We worked through the night doing what we could for an assortment of severe dehydration, chest pain, acute asthma, hyper- and hypoglycemia, assorted trauma including GSWs, active labor (delivered one baby), CVA, psychotic breaks, renal failure, etc. You name it, we saw it as patients collapsed in the Superdome and were dragged over to us. We attempted to helicopter the unstable patients out, but the helicopters quit running at about 9 p.m. when they were being fired upon. Unable to transport by ambulance due to the flooding, we were unable to get any critical patients out and they continued to build up. The pace was so frantic we had no time to even attempt to clean the place and there was no water to wash gurneys between patients.

Throughout the night more and more refugees converged upon the Superdome, which became increasingly chaotic, and the few National Guard troops there were unable to maintain control. By 9 a.m. it became apparent that we had no protection and the order was passed that we would have to evacuate the area. We were forced to literally abandon the patients, many of whom had I.V.s running, etc. We exited down onto the floor of the ice ring, boarded three trucks and made our way up the ramps through swelling crowds in the most harrowing ride of my life.

Several people have asked me what services an anesthesiologist can provide in such a situation as we are so highly specialized and deal infrequently, if ever, in primary care. The skills we utilized in the Superdome are skills that can be provided by any doctor, regardless of specialty. As the first wave of response, our goal was to treat as many patients as quickly as possible to extend their survival 24-36 hours until they could be evacuated for more definitive care. In that regard, we were quite successful despite the austere conditions, and I am confident that 200-300 patients survived as the result of the efforts of [my team].

In the Media (please see complete report at <www.ASAhq.org/news/mediabriefs.htm>):

Today’s SurgiCenter, 9-15-05
In the days following Hurricane Katrina, anesthesiologists from all over the country rushed to ask the same questions. They wanted to know how they could help as physicians and how they could donate to relief efforts on behalf of their profession.

“The outpouring of concern by our members has been amazing,” said Eugene P. Sinclair, M.D., president of the American Society of Anesthesiologists. “Instead of worrying about what would become of our annual meeting in a few weeks, they were much more concerned about providing assistance to those in dire straits in the Gulf region.”

Associated Press, 9-10-05
“I think you have to do the things that give you strength to get through this,” said Frank Rosinia, an anesthesiologist perspiring as he rode a racing bicycle. He’s been working at a hospital [in New Orleans] since Hurricane Katrina hit.

NBC-TV in Buffalo, Chicago Tribune, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and others, 9-11-05 and 9-12-05
[In a story about people who were evacuated from the roof of a New Orleans hospital but were not allowed to take their pets]: The couple says an anesthesiologist at the hospital offered to stay behind and care for all of the pets as best he could … the doctor at the hospital stayed for days on the rooftop of the hospital, giving the animals minimal amounts of water and food. Finally, after nearly a week … help came. “It made me feel the world wasn’t as bad as I thought it was,” said Lorne of the many people involved in rescuing and reuniting the pets.

Chicago Tribune, 9-04-05
Dr. James Hicks of Portland, Ore., who flew to New Orleans Thursday as part of a disaster medical assistance team, described the scene at the airport as a “seething mass of desperate humanity.” About 3,000 refugees had gone to the airport from New Orleans, and sanitation was “marginal,” the doctor reported to colleagues at the American Society of Anesthesiologists.

USA Today, 9-1-05
The [American Society of Anesthesiologists] was set to celebrate its centennial in New Orleans next month — a celebration 12 years in the making that included a black-tie gala for 1,500 people. But on Wednesday, the group canceled.

It was particularly disappointing for Orin Guidry, a New Orleans resident who is the society’s incoming president.

Wednesday, he had other things on his mind. “Frankly any disappointment about the meeting pales in comparison to the suffering of many of the victims of this storm. ... Concern about where I take over the office (of president) is the furthest thing from my mind,” he wrote in an e-mail from his brother’s home in Lafayette, La.

This sampling of experiences provides a snapshot of the strength and courage of our members in the face of adversity. ASA commends all who responded to those affected by this disaster.